‘No Kings’ returns under a banner of early voting
By: Michel Melichar, Editor-in-Chief
Amid concerns of stripped voting rights, the event urges people to vote in the upcoming November midterms.
The nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests returned to Los Angeles for a fourth time on Oct. 17. A handful of Valley professors gathered for the nearby Studio City protest.
Spurred by the midterms in a few weeks, organizers called this month’s event “No Kings: Vote Early”. Indivisible and 50501, the main progressive nonprofits spearheading the event, said that rather than a day of pure protest, the event will serve as “a day of nonpartisan voter participation” prior to voting centers opening on Oct. 24. ‘No Kings’ originated in the summer of 2025 to oppose the erosion of democratic and civil foundations in the United States, the whole country.
“If you look at how many people vote, it’s a very small percentage who are eligible, particularly among young people,” said Ruby Christian-Brougham, a Valley College psychology professor and the Valley chapter president for the Los Angeles College Faculty Guild who attended the No Kings protest in Studio City. “I think part of it is the apathy, that feeling that there’s no way to get out of this situation, so I think that [this event] is a show of support.”
Organizers planned over 30 protests across the county, including the region’s flagship site at Gloria Molina Grand Park in downtown and smaller gatherings in local neighborhoods, like Studio City.
In Studio City, the atmosphere was not tense. Starting earlier in the day, around 200 people spanned the intersections of Laurel Canyon and Ventura boulevards. As the lights turned green, people crowded the crosswalks as car and truck horns blared in support. Protesters dressed as Frankenstein and the Statue of Liberty, as well as people holding signs akin to the ones seen in the downtown protest.
The area is home to “Studio City Rising,” a group that participates in small-scale protests at the intersection every Saturday, typically drawing around 50 people, mostly local residents and retirees.
The downtown event officially started at 1 p.m. Event speakers rallied the crowd with chants. Tents with nonprofit representatives crowded the main park.
The 30-minute march started after around an hour and a half of speeches and energizing the crowd. It took a short loop around downtown starting in front of City Hall. The march leaders had Indigenous people take the presiding position at the front of the march as a gesture of respect for the land’s original inhabitants. Passing drivers honked in solidarity with the movement and a few leaned out of their windows and held up a fist.
The event followed a record-breaking turnout for their previous No Kings in March, with an estimated 8 million people marching in unison nationally and an approximate 50,000 to 100,000 people attending downtown’s protest, according to an article by LAist. Saturday’s march had around 1,500 people, with speaker Jessica Denson acknowledging that the crowd was “significantly smaller than it has been in the past.”
Despite being advertised as nonpartisan, events were familiarly anti-Trump, with signs saying “F*** Trump” evenly distributed among signs calling for early voting.
Two recent developments increased the weekend event’s political tension: increased ICE presence and a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department against California on Oct. 15.
The suit alleged poor handling of voter fraud claims, saying the state failed to review nearly 20,000 people across the state that the department claimed are noncitizens. California officials have disputed these claims.
ICE has been a significant protest rallying cry, with speakers at the downtown protest calling upon their own experiences with the agency. In her speech, state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez linked increased immigration enforcement with “voter intimidation.” No Kings 4 came right as ICE had quietly begun “Operation Safe California,” a 45-day operation where sources told the Washington Examiner that ICE officers were told to “go after anybody.”
“I think the idea of arresting people or even stopping people on the streets without any kind of warrant is just horrendous,” said Chauncey Maddren, a professor emeritus of music at Valley, who attended the Studio City protest. “[I don’t know] how they can get away with unmarked vehicles, no badge, names or numbers, masks, all these things, which I think we have come to take for granted in terms of our law enforcement”.
By the late afternoon, the Studio City crowd had dissipated. As per usual, a few protesters from the downtown event eventually headed down to the nearby Metropolitan Detention Center to further protest ICE and its collaboration with the LAPD, which always prompts police retaliation.
“We have a pretty fair voting system for the most part. It’s good to have these people checking up and making sure stuff doesn’t get corrupt,” said Oswaldo Gomez, a graphic design major. He added that while he knows where he stands, the topics often get him and his wife “riled up.”
Despite lower-than-expected numbers, the event’s organizers emphasized that turnout at the polls rather than the protest is what truly matters next.
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